Prospero and the Black Arrow rocket (United Kingdom)
Prospero y el cohete Black Arrow (Reino Unido)
- Date
- 28 de octubre de 1971 · confidence high
- Place
- Woomera, South Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- Royal Aircraft Establishment and Westland (United Kingdom)
- Field
- Movement
What it is
The United Kingdom put the Prospero satellite in orbit with its Black Arrow rocket from Woomera. It was its only orbital launch of its own before the programme was cancelled.
Prospero is still in orbit. The UK was the sixth power to launch a satellite on its own rocket (after the USSR, US, France, Japan and China); the Black Arrow programme was cancelled in 1971.
What it led to
- a British national launcher without continuity
- European cooperation in the European Space Agency (ESA, 1975)
- a lesson on the costs of national launchers versus European ones